A status report from Mali in January 2021
In Mali, crises are currently overlapping - long-standing ones with more recent ones, political ones with socio-economic ones, and on top of that COVID-19. How are IAMANEH's local partner organisations proceeding in order to be able to continue the extremely risky civil society work on sexual health, self-determination and gender equality in Mali?
Kadiatou Keïta works as the Mali Country Coordinator for IAMANEH Switzerland. Based in the capital Bamako, she is the hub between local partner organisations and the IAMANEH office in Basel. She tells us about the increasingly oppressive circumstances that the Malian population and our civil society partners are facing. In addition to the COVID crisis and weak public support, the transitional government formed in the aftermath of the 2020 coup (see box below) is struggling with a further exacerbated security crisis: in the previously relatively stable south-east, looting and even shootings have occurred in broad daylight since the coup. In the occupied north-east and the war-torn centre of the country, separatist and Islamist groups are profiting from the power vacuum. Health services and hygiene infrastructures cannot function regularly due to the security crisis, which has a drastic impact on the COVID situation. A state of emergency and curfews have been imposed following a steep rise in infections in December, and while an appreciable proportion of the population doubts the existence of Corona, access to vaccine doses for Malians is seemingly out of reach. Emblematic of the convoluted crisis is Soumaïla Cissé: the opposition politician and presidential aspirant, recently freed from jihadist hostage-taking, died of a COVID-19 infection in December.
For the Malian population, the combined pressures of political, security and health crises are enormous, not least due to increased financial hardship. Many have lost their source of income, on which ten or more people often depend. According to Keïta, there are hardly any families left who are able to get a meal three times a day, and the number of beggars has multiplied. Between Islamist militias, looting and robberies, young women in particular hardly dare to go out onto the streets any more; they and their families live in constant fear. Organisations like IAMANEH, which work for women's and girls' rights and sexual health, risk attacks by Islamist groups. For their protection, the staff of our local partner organisation travel as inconspicuously as possible by public transport or simple carts so as not to attract robbery or other violence. Travel plans are decided at very short notice and are kept strictly confidential. As women and girls are even more threatened by violence, forced marriages, genital mutilation and deprivation of rights in the face of increasing hardship and social tension, our local partners are all the more determined to continue their work consistently despite the adverse conditions. We are moved by the courage and strength of our Malian colleagues and support them in their immeasurably valuable work with all our means.
Sociopolitical situation in Mali
The already extremely conflict-ridden situation in the West African Republic of Mali has worsened again in a complex way in 2020. The country on the Niger River is divided into the water-rich southwest, which is home to 90% of the Malian population as well as the government city of Bamako, and the sprawling northeast. The north-east, which stretches far into the Sahara, is the scene of the Northern Mali War: since 2012, it has been controlled partly by separatist Tuareg and partly by Islamist groups, while the USA, France and the UN, among others, provide troops on the side of the Malian government. In the summer of 2020, there were serious public protests against the corruption of the Malian government and the lack of success in the conflict in northern Mali: on 18 August, the government was overthrown by its own military. While a large part of the population welcomed the coup, the international community (including Switzerland) and the West African Economic Community (CEDEAO) condemned it. Through political pressure and economic sanctions, they secured the formation of a transitional government in October. 
